He was one of the most influential figures in the early days of Hollywood. He also became the key player in perhaps the first “Hollywood scandal,” which Americans have now become so familiar with. Now, the films of “Fatty” Arbuckle are being resurrected thanks to a Massachusetts-based orchestral group, which is touring the country performing [...]

Israeli troops have invaded and captured most of Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, bringing Israelis and Palestinians to the brink of a state of war. The military operation comes in the wake of another suicide bombing in Israel, the third since the Passover feast began Wednesday night.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon used bellicose language this [...]

Racial and ethnic minorities receive inferior health care as compared to white Americans, even when factors like income and insurance are controlled for, according to a new study.
While the gaps in health indicators among racial groups has been well-known, this new study points to actual biases inside doctor’s offices. As one member of the study’s [...]

Once a reliable thread that held American society together, the institution of marriage is falling apart, argues sociologist James Q. Wilson. And the results, he says, are devastating.
It’s hard to argue with Wilson’s argument about the fate of marriage. The percentage of American children living in two-family homes has been declining since the 1960’s. More [...]

“Cities that never had phone service are being wired for broadband,” says Edward Tian, the man credited with building the Internet in China. “We are basically wiring the nation with fiber that will bring limitless opportunity to the people.”
Yahoo! Internet Life magazine writer David Sheff has followed the key players in the Internet boom that [...]

Last year, James Carroll’s book “Constantine’s Sword” outlined the long history of anti-Semitism in Christianity and offered ideas as to how we might reach atonement and forgiveness. One year later the Catholic Church is wrapped up in a priest scandal, and the United States finds itself walking a thin tightrope in the Middle East, and [...]

Many Americans have changed their views on George W. Bush since September 11th. And in many ways, the President himself has changed since that fateful day. But at his core, George W. remains the down-home, unpolished cowboy that most Americans first met during the 2000 campaign.
New York Times reporter Frank Bruni forged a close working [...]

Robert Mugabe was supposed to be the savior of Zimbabwe. Twenty-two years ago, he led a revolution against fascist, minority rule, setting up a democracy in 1980. But since then, Mugabe has led his country on a downward path towards dictatorship.
Earlier this month, Mugabe won a fifth, six-year term as Zimbabwe’s President. The election was [...]

The Supreme Court is mulling over the legality of mandatory drug testing for high school students in a case that some fear could have far-reaching effects in schools across the nation.
The case involves a teenager from Oklahoma, who refused to take a drug test that was required of her because she was a member of [...]

“This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. It’s for the women who stand behind me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox and it’s for every nameless faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.”
With those words, [...]

Music has the ability to speak to us with a depth that can far surpass words, especially in uncertain times like today. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why? Composer Robert Kapilow has the answer.
This hour, Robert Kapilow explains what makes great music great. From “Appalachin Spring” to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Kapilow [...]

The center of the world’s largest movie-making machine is not in California. In fact, it’s half a world away in Bombay, India. Nicknamed “Bollywood,” the Bombay film industry churns out 800 films a year to a daily audience of 14 million viewers.
Bollywood movies often follow a similar formula: lots of songs and choreographed dances, bloodless [...]

David Brock has a confession to make. Almost everything the best-selling onetime rightwing hero journalist wrote in the 1990’s was a lie. And not little white lies that don’t matter. But big lies with huge consequences. Lies that discredited Anita Hill in her battle with Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Lies that almost brought down [...]

For the first time in 12,000 years, open water sits in a region of eastern Antarctica, after the rapid melting of a giant piece of floating ice roughly the size of Rhode Island.
Scientists agree that the quick disintegration of the Larsen B ice shelf, which has existed since the Ice Age, is a remarkable geological [...]

Violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have become an all-too-familiar news headline recently. With all the violence and death that have plagued the Middle East over the past couple of months, it is difficult to remember that each attack and killing impacts real people.
The Bereaved Families’ Forum (”Bereaved Parents Circle”) is a group that was [...]

Love him or hate him, everyone has an opinion about the presidency of Bill Clinton. To some, he was a slick politician, dishonest and lacking any real conviction. To others, he was a steady leader, who oversaw an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
Political journalist Joe Klein began covering Bill Clinton even before he set [...]

Jane Swift, who made national headlines when she became the first Governor ever to give birth while in office, tearfully announced she would not run for the office this November.
Swift cited the difficulty of balancing the increasing demands of being Governor of a state in a budget crisis and being the mother the young twins [...]

Vice President Dick Cheney is wrapping up a 12-nation tour designed to foster Arab support for a possible U.S. military mission in Iraq. In addition to working to build an alliance against Saddam Hussein, Cheney undoubtedly also spoke with Arab leaders about the ongoing fighting between Israelis and Palestinians and the overall goals of the [...]

If an ignorance of history dooms one to repeat the mistakes of the past, America could be in a lot of trouble. As countless studies and Jay Leno skits demonstrate, Americans do not have a good understanding of their historical roots. Now one history professor and cognitive psychologist is arguing that the way in which [...]

Despite having called foreign aid a waste and sometimes even harmful in the past, President Bush announced $5 billion in new aid to developing countries late last week. Bush called the aid an important part of the war on terrorism, because it would help eliminate the conditions of poverty that allow terrorist to thrive.
The United [...]

There is little doubt that you have heard the music of Jean ‘Toots’ Thielemans. Perhaps his most famous composition is the theme to “Sesame Street,” which he wrote and performed on his famous harmonica.
The 80-year-old Thielemans is most famous for bringing the harmonica into jazz. Prior to his introducing it into modern jazz orchestras, the [...]

The great Irish poet F.R. Higgins summed up the essence of Irish poetry in 1939:
“Irish poets are believers - heretical believers, maybe - but they have the spiritual buoyancy of a belief in something. The sort of belief I see in Ireland is a belief emanating from life, from nature, from revealed religion, and from [...]

The concept of a corporate glass ceiling for women seems like it should be a remnant of the distant past. But a recent study by the General Accounting Office suggests that the wage gap between men and women has actually been widening over the past 5 years.
The study found that in 2000, a female manager [...]

A classified Pentagon report leaked over the weekend has several nations accusing the United States of having a hypocritical approach to its nuclear weapons.
As America talks of military intervention if nations like Iraq develop weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon report recommends that the U.S. military develop new nuclear weapons that would be able to [...]

The scandal over pedophilia in the priesthood is spreading beyond the Boston archdiocese as new allegations are sprouting up throughout the country and Catholics around the world struggle to understand the crisis gripping their church.
Cardinal Bernard Law has had his say on the issue. Despite calls for him to resign, Law says he is the [...]

United States envoy Anthony Zinni is heading to the Middle East Thursday, in hopes of defusing the stepped-up violence in that region. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has called the U.S. the key to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians — but he is skeptical that anything good will come out of Zinni’s visit.
“Not to [...]

The concept of “racial blindness” — the purposeful ignoring of racial differences — has failed to erase racial inequalities, argues Harvard Law School professor and famously spurned Clinton nominee Lani Guinier.
Rather than ignore race or organize politically by race, Guinier prescribes cross-racial, grassroots organizing as the key to overcoming the nation’s race problems. White Americans [...]

On the first stop on his trip overseas, Vice President Dick Cheney brought a key ally in line with the Bush administration’s view on Iraq.
“Let’s be under no doubt whatever,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a press conference yesterday, with Cheney at his side. “Saddam Hussein has acquired weapons of mass destruction over [...]

John Kenneth Galbraith has lived through every major event of the past century — and his writings have influenced the players in many of them.
In addition to revolutionizing economic theory, Galbraith had a distinguished career in public service. He served in both the FDR and JFK Administrations, and is the only man to have served [...]

Six months ago, the United States was reeling from the worst terrorist attacks in its history. The twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, the Pentagon was on fire and thousands of Americans lost their lives.
In the hours and weeks after the attacks, one phrase was repeated over and over: “The world [...]

It’s been a long week. The whole world seems embroiled in conflict, violence. The Middle East, the Philippines, Afghanistan. Ever feel like you just want to take a step back, sit down, and exhale? That’s what we’re doing tonight.
Vance Gilbert is our guest this hour. It’s pretty impossible to categorize Vance Gilbert’s music, though we’re [...]

One day shy of the six-month anniversary of the September 11th attacks, CBS will run a two-hour documentary called “9/11,” which will feature never before seen footage of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The footage was captured by filmmakers Gedeon and Jules Naudet, who happened to filming a documentary on New York City [...]

Starting in 1867, generations of African-Americans have unsuccessfully tried to convince Congress to pay reparations to the descendents of slaves. Now a new lawsuit is targeting corporations who benefited from slave labor prior to 1865, when the 13th Amendment outlawed involuntary servitude.
The first lawsuit to go after corporations names FleetBoston; insurers Aetna, New York Life [...]

John Dean is no stranger to political scandal and cover-up. In the early 1970s, Dean served as White Counsel under President Richard Nixon. As the scandal surrounding the break-in of the Watergate office building began to unfold, Dean participated in the cover-up, which later landed him in jail for four months on obstruction of justice [...]

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak became the latest international figure to urge President Bush to become more involved in the violent standoff between Israelis and Palestinians.
The United States has mostly stayed out of the conflict over the past several months, with President Bush saying that no peace negotiations were possible until there is an end to [...]

“We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it,” says renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky. “There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously. But that you can’t discuss.”
Noam Chomsky has [...]

The September 11th attacks took most of the world by complete surprise. But not Steven Emerson. The investigative journalist had been tracking militant Islamic activity in America for over a decade and had seen firsthand how active these groups were within our borders, often without the government even being aware.
Emerson says that few people took [...]

Conflicting expert testimonies have thickened the plot at the murder trial of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who is charged with drowning her five children in a bathtub.
Dr. Mohammad Saeed, the psychiatrist who examined Yates just two days before the drownings, testified yesterday that he saw no evidence that Yates was psychotic just before the [...]

A radio diary from Bob Fleisher of Nashua, New Hampshire, about how the protest music of his youth has even more meaning now.
Guests:

The most preventable cause of death in the United States may soon be obesity, departing Surgeon General David Satcher warned before he left office. Over 60% of adults are medically considered overweight or obese, and obesity-related illnesses kill over 300,000 Americans every year.
While lower levels of exercise are certainly a cause for the obesity epidemic, [...]

As fighting between American and al Qaeda forces escalates in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced today that nine Americans have died in combat since the weekend.
Several hundred al Qaeda forces are believed to be holed up in mountains and cave complexes in the eastern part of the country. American military officials [...]

This year’s Academy Awards nominations include an unprecedented three nominations for African-American in the leading actor/actress categories. The roles include a famous prizefighter, a cop on the verge of going off the edge, and a wife of an executed murderer who falls for her white executioner.
There are more roles available to black actors these days [...]

America is a nation of immigrants and refugees but since 9.11 there are questions about just how open America’s borders and hearts should and can be. In this hour, refugees tell their stories of struggle and survival.
On Point broadcasts in-studio interviews and radio diaries that paint intimate portraits of how changing national policy and public [...]